WHO WE ARE
Open Rivers ethos is captured in our people and how we collaborate on efforts. Given the breadth of our work, we utilize a mixture of team members, experts and volunteers (for pro bono projects) to tailor and deliver impactful solutions, both effectively and efficiently. We manage timelines, costs and bandwidth by only adding the support that is needed.
THe open RiveRs Team
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Shefali V. Mehta
FOUNDER & PRINCIPAL
Dr. Shefali V. Mehta is an economist and statistician who founded and leads Open Rivers Consulting Associates. Shefali is an Adjunct Professor at University of Minnesota’s School of Statistics and Bard College’s Sustainable MBA program. She is a member of the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Mathematics’ Sustainability Roundtable. She serves or has served as advisor or Board member to a range of nonprofits including Land Core, the NSF Big Data Hubs, One Resilient Earth, Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever (also served as Vice Chair of the Board, the first woman to hold this position) amongst others. She has held roles with McKinsey, Syngenta (R&D and Operations for Global Seeds), the National Corn Grower’s Soil Health Partnership and as Deputy Under Secretary of Research, Education and Economics and Acting Chief Scientist of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) during the Biden-Harris Administration.
Shefali earned her PhD in Agricultural and Applied Economics and MS in Statistics from the University of Minnesota, MPhil in Economics from Cambridge University and a BA in Economics from New York University. She earned her integral coaching certification from New Ventures West. Shefali loves being outdoors, arts and music and exploring this incredible world.
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Arnold Johnsen
RESEARCH ASSISTANT
Arnold Johnsen is a PhD candidate in the School of Statistics at the University of Minnesota, and an Ecological Data Science Intern with the North American Bat Monitoring Program (NABat) at the USGS. He has experience in statistical consulting with academic, government, and nonprofit clients through UMN’s Institute for Research in Statistics and its Applications and Open Rivers. He will be starting as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in the fall developing statistical methods for cancer screening trials.
Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/arnold-johnsen
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Elena Tsakakis
RESEARCH ASSOCIATE
Elena Tsakakis works as an evaluation and research associate at the Science Museum of Minnesota. Her research focuses largely on understanding how teachers and students engage with informal science resources and experiences, and how community members engage with science. She also contributes to ongoing evaluation of informal learning experiences, formative and summative evaluations of exhibits and museum programming, and tracks key metrics across the museum to measure impact. She is passionate about telling stories with data and finding ways to articulate how people and science are intertwined. She has a M.S. in Natural Resource Management from the University of Minnesota, and a B.S. in molecular biology from the University of South Dakota. Outside of work, Elena enjoys reading, playing soccer, and all things outdoors.
